I'm clearly not happy with this change. I'd be as unhappy about it if
Paul had already written 50,000 commits, or it had been written by RMS.
But, to repeat myself, I'm most unhappy that it was slipped into Emacs
bypassing the customary discussion process.

Much as I dislike this and related changes, and the enormous timewaste
that ensued, the change had been approved by the back-then maintainer,
in an even more broken form (which has been improved upon somewhat
since). Who had never voiced a significant change in his position in any
subsequent discussions, IIRC.